Installing Ball Valves on Mainline

[SeanD]

I'm going to install ball valves on a new mainline that will have 60ish taps to help me track down leaks when they arise. I'm guessing cutting them in during the install is the smartest way to do it. Few questions:

Steps - Or is it easier to get the line up and tied then cut in the valves. I use a spinning jenny to get the tubing rolled out and I use a come along to pull it tight before I tie it. That seems like it will get tricky if I'm trying to put valves in at the same time. What't the best order of events?

Valve location - I don't exactly know where the laterals will come in, yet. It's about 350 feet of mainline with 5 taps per lateral max, so 15ish laterals. Some areas will have more laterals than others. Is it okay to just guess some spots for the valves for now?

Valve number - With about 15 laterals, how many valves is helpful down the road with out going overboard? 3 valves every 5 laterals or so? More?

Valve orientation - Can I orient the valve sideways to keep the moving parts away from the wire? Sooner or later it will freeze full, but that shouldn't matter, right?

Valve type - I was planning to use 3/4" female pvc valves with male thread to barb fittings on either side. Any problems there?

Thanks in advance,
Sean

[eagle lake sugar]

IMG_0846.jpg You only need a valve and vacuum gauge at the beginning of the mainline. Close the valve and watch the gauge to see if it drops, you'll find the leaks very easily on vacuum. I usually lash the line to the wire and preassemble my gauges, cut the mainline and put them in with my mainline tool.

[eagle lake sugar]

IMG_0851.jpg I found a better picture.

[JoeJ]

I would advise against use PVC valves. The handles will break after a season or two. Install a lead free brass ball valve with a stainless steel Tee for your vacuum gauge. After you install your vacuum gauge, cover the gauge with a tin can. Punch a hole in each side of the can rim and then tie the can down with a piece of thin wire. If the gauge is not covered, it will not last a season. For a main line 350' long, one valve is fine, but if you want to make it easier to pinpoint leak, put in a second valve and gauge half way up the line.

Joe

[eagle lake sugar]

I would advise against use PVC valves. The handles will break after a season or two. Install a lead free brass ball valve with a stainless steel Tee for your vacuum gauge. After you install your vacuum gauge, cover the gauge with a tin can. Punch a hole in each side of the can rim and then tie the can down with a piece of thin wire. If the gauge is not covered, it will not last a season. For a main line 350' long, one valve is fine, but if you want to make it easier to pinpoint leak, put in a second valve and gauge half way up the line.

Joe

Stainless valves are ideal, but I have 30 mainlines and have only had one pvc valve fail in 8 seasons, so.....

[maple flats]

I have always used lead free brass ball valves, by Legend. They have valves with the barbed portion as part of the valve. That makes it much handier. If you can't find them locally, try Seneca Plumbing and Heating in Vernon, NY. I have gotten 3/4" and 1" ones there for 30 years. I never tried to get larger ones, I don't know how large they go. My mains are all 3/4 and 1".

[unc23win]

For what it is worth PVC valves do work however having one break during a peak sap run absolutely sucks. Not only that for a reasonable price you can get stainless valves with barbs machined into them from MES 3/4" for $13 or 1" for $18. More expensive than PVC and Brass probably, but you don't have to assemble them which cuts down on labor and potential leaks. The same goes for other fittings the stainless prices are coming down if you shop around you can find deals.

We install all of ours before we pull the line tight.

I totally get the $ part but when you have lines and lines and lines a few extra $ spent when installing lines saves time and money in the long run.

Joe how about a picture of your gauge cover?

[VT_K9]

I had plans to install a valve on each of my mainline laterals because it would make trouble shooting that much easier. However I changed that idea. Mainly based on the number of potential leak points. I planed to use a Y to enter the mainline from the lateral. A short distance up I would place a valve with a gauge on the uphill side.

We now use the CDL monitoring system. That has helped with trouble shooting. We still have several valves but not on each lateral. The vacuum sensors can help direct you to the most likely area to check first and then expand from there.

We are a smallish operation and have started to change our pipe connection points over to maple SS fittings. There are some differences in how fittings interact with pipes and how well the pipe is secured to the fitting. I believe plastic fittings are thicker and create an area for turbulence and junk build up. We found some SS plumbing fittings at a decent price and started to use those. The plumbing fittings are thicker than maple fittings. The maple fittings have sharper barbs. We have also changed from the traditional ss pipe clamp to a band-it style clamp. Some of the ss pipe clamps have broken or we need to use two of them. It takes one band-it clamp.

My first method of an inline gauge
Mainline gauge.jpg
Plumbing fitting notice the thickness of the sidewall
Plumbing fitting.jpg
Maple fitting with thinner sidewall
Maple fitting.jpg
Current gauge set up. The band-it clamps are visible and the CDL Spin Seal
New mainline gauge.jpg

[western mainer]

Use these valves https://www.bascommaple.com/item/vbs10b/valves/
Fast and easy less clamps and leaks.
Brian

[DrTimPerkins]

We are a smallish operation and have started to change our pipe connection points over to maple SS fittings. There are some differences in how fittings interact with pipes and how well the pipe is secured to the fitting. I believe plastic fittings are thicker and create an area for turbulence and junk build up. We found some SS plumbing fittings at a decent price and started to use those. The plumbing fittings are thicker than maple fittings. The maple fittings have sharper barbs.

Agreed. The PVC fittings certainly do add more turbulence. We've documented this visually https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbnD3agwrlg It is very difficult to quantify the effect this has on yield, and although they are more expensive, the SS fittings last a LOT longer than the PVC fittings do and seem to have fewer pull-aparts and leaks.